


H & C Security Consulting Services:  On the Road

by chelseagirl



Series: Alias Investigations [4]
Category: Alias Smith and Jones
Genre: F/M, Gen, Investigations, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-29 17:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15077930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelseagirl/pseuds/chelseagirl
Summary: Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry are flourishing, as their past as the West's most successful outlaws means their Security Consulting Services are in high demand.  When they head off for their last business trip before the winter, Heyes invites Ella along.   Adventure inevitably ensues.





	1. Blue Sky to Helena

**Author's Note:**

> I'm experimenting with this one: although I post stories in parts, I've always posted all the parts together. But for this one, I'm going to post one part at a time. (No worries, the story's completed, so I won't leave you dangling for too long.)
> 
> This was the first new ASJ story I started when I rediscovered the show and the fandom, almost a year ago now. It's a picaresque -- there are some major incidents and some minor ones, but the plot takes its shape from the journey. I thought it was going to be the only new story I wrote in the fandom, but I've already proved myself wrong on that. This one just took a little longer to get to where it was going.
> 
> {['m posting a bit out of order, but reorganizing as I post, so if you've read "A Brand New Game" in this series, it obviously takes place some years down the road.]

We had returned to Blue Sky, Montana in the spring of that year, and by autumn, it was almost as though we’d never left. While Heyes and Jed had, much to our surprise, been the ones to suggest that we leave Denver and head north, Sandy and I were delighted to go home. Denver had its many advantages, but we’d always felt like visitors there. Once back in Montana, we fell into the rhythms of small town life easily. This was helped along by the fact that I’d never quite brought myself to sell the house, which my parents had built (or, to be honest, had built for them) shortly after I was born. There was plenty of room for us all, including the newest arrival.

Sandy and Jed’s baby had been born late that summer. He was named Thaddeus, with a wink, “that name having brought me some considerable luck,” as the Kid said. Albert Raintree, Sandy’s father, was there for the birth and for some time afterwards. As the days grew shorter, though, he returned to his people, with a promise that he’d be back again before winter set in. 

Heyes and Curry Security Services was doing quite well, their past reputation attracting clients eager to take advantage of their turn to the side of law and order. Since their business covered a large region, they traveled often, but by geographic good fortune, little Blue Sky had its own train station, and surprisingly good rail service. Jed and Heyes were rarely gone for more than a week at a time – two at most. As the autumn progressed, they felt comfortable enough about things that they decided not to take on any work that would draw them out of town for the winter months when sudden snowfalls could make travel so uncertain.

Jeremy and I picked up our law practice again as though nothing had ever changed. We’d never formally dissolved our partnership, and during the years I was away, he’d written me frequently to consult about cases. There was plenty of work for both of us, especially as his most recent clerk had just been admitted to the bar, and decamped for Bozeman, where he had family, almost immediately thereafter. 

But though we were busy, as chance would have it, we were in the midst of a brief lull at the office, just as Heyes and Jed were planning their last business trip until spring. One morning, Heyes looked at me over the breakfast table and said, “Want to come along with us on this one, Ella?” When I got to the office, I consulted with my partner. Jeremy said he’d have no problem with handling our immediate matters on his own. 

“Heyes keeps suggesting we do more legal work for them, but since you’ve been back in town, we’ve only really drafted some basic contracts. It would make sense for you to go along and see how else we can work together,” he pointed out, as though I needed any convincing, “what with you being literally in-house counsel and all. Besides, it would do the two of you good to get away together.” Well, together along with Kid Curry, but that went without saying. I did ask, mostly but not entirely facetiously, whether we would have to share a room with the Kid, at the various hotels we’d be staying at along the way. Heyes assured me that they’d spring for two rooms on this trip.

Several days later, I found myself at the train station with my husband and his partner, ready to spend the next few weeks observing Heyes and Curry Security Services in action. 

*****

We boarded the mid-day train. Curry and Heyes sat down next to each other, with the automatic ease of a pair who’d been traveling together for years. I settled down in a window seat across the aisle, and pulled out my book, the final volume of the Gibbon _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ that Heyes had brought me from Denver a few months earlier. A moment later, I saw the two men exchange a glance, and then Heyes rose, and moved to join me. Best not leave a lady to travel on her own; I could hear his thoughts as clearly as if he’d spoken them aloud. I shook my head quickly. The last thing I wanted to do was to intrude on their usual routine. And here, though I might be wife to one of them, I was still the outsider. He nodded and settled down again by his partner, just where he ought to be. Besides, I’d been quite looking forward to some uninterrupted reading time: at home and at the office, someone or something nearly always seemed to need my immediate attention.

A few stops along, where there was a junction between two lines, a number of passengers boarded. A middle-aged woman saw me sitting by myself, and made directly towards me.

“So nice to find another lady traveling on her own,” she said, and proposed that we band together. “How far are you going?”

I smiled politely, and did not bother to correct her about my solitary traveler status. Instead, I set aside my book for the moment, while she chatted away at me, a little nervously. She was pleasant enough, and I got caught up in the conversation, despite my intention of getting in some quiet reading time.

After a short while, she leaned towards me and whispered. “Those two rough-looking men across the aisle . . . do you think they might be dangerous?” I was used to observing other women’s reactions to my husband and his partner, and they generally centered more on their good looks than any perceived danger. They had worn their trail clothes for comfort in traveling, and there was something about them both that suggested they’d seen and done more than their years might indicate. But rough-looking?

A spirit of mischief took hold of me, and I replied, exactly as I should not have. “They do look a bit like a pair of notorious outlaws who’ve been seen in these parts recently.” I pitched my voice just loud enough that I knew Heyes would hear me, but that the car in general would not.

Having said my piece, I picked up my book, and began to read again.

It was ten or fifteen minutes later that I became aware that Heyes was standing in the aisle, leaning ever so slightly over my seatmate.

“Excuse me, m’am,” he said politely.

She was utterly paralyzed with fear, by the looks of it.

“I just wanted to give my wife this piece of blueberry pie,” he said, as offhand as anything, and handed me a carefully wrapped slice of Sandy’s specialty.

“Are you getting bored, dear?” I asked, emphasizing the endearment just slightly. “Looking for something to read?” Pulling a Dickens from my bag, a favorite of mine that I was fairly sure he’d never read, I passed it to him, over my stunned-looking neighbor.

“ _Bleak House_?” he asked. “Sounds a bit dreary.”

“Oh, no,” I assured him. “It’s all about lawyers and the depredations they practice on the innocent and the unwary.”

“Well, that sounds all right, then,” he said, and withdrew, book in hand.

I then, of course, apologized to my neighbor, who admitted that she had recently come to Montana from Ohio, to keep house and mind the children for her newly-widowed brother. She was still sorting out fact from dime-novel fiction, and there was just something intriguing about the two men, and really my husband seemed very nice. She blushed a little, as she said that. Shortly afterwards, a second piece of blueberry pie made its way across the aisle – not the first time Sandy’s baking had gotten me out of trouble.

We chatted quite amiably for the next half an hour or so, when the train pulled into Helena station, and I prepared to make my departure. I handed her my card, as I gathered my things together. Her eyes widened, both at my profession – I might have laid it on a little thick about the evil lawyers in _Bleak House_ – and at the surname, with its unusual spelling. She was further flustered when Heyes gave her a card for the security services, which confirmed that those “rough” men across the aisle had, at least at one time, been exactly what she’d suspected them of being. After all, Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes were hardly unknown in Ohio; on his one trip to New York City, a few years earlier, Heyes had discovered that their reputation had preceded him even there.

The Kid looked at her kindly, with his frank blue eyes, and Heyes gave her his warmest smile. She was apparently reassured, and bade us farewell with a genuine smile of her own. She and I corresponded occasionally for a number of years afterwards, and I was able to help her brother with a small legal matter involving a land dispute, so I’m fairly sure I was forgiven.

Heyes, seeing me struggle with my case as I began to make my way down the aisle, handed me his smaller bag and took custody of my substantially larger valise, mock-grumbling about it as he carried it across the platform and towards the hotel. The Kid took his part, and they teased me at some length about my luggage, though I reminded them with pretended gravity that a lady’s wardrobe took up rather more space than a gentleman’s. Anyway, they’d always been remarkable at packing, the pair of them – in all the years before and after, I never did figure out how they fit quite so much in the saddlebags they generally traveled with.

Helena was the one place we were scheduled to visit that I was more familiar with than either of my companions were. While we had judges riding the circuit around the region, and Blue Sky was lucky enough to have Judge Clayton semi-retired among us, much of the legal business of the territory took place in the capital at regularly scheduled intervals. I’d been coming to court here for years, until my daughter Rachel was born and Jeremy began to go in my place. But on returning to Blue Sky and resuming my law practice, I also resumed that role. Jeremy and Melanie had four small children now and a fifth on the way and, with my daughter gone, it made more sense for me to go and to allow my partner to stay home with his lively young family. Especially with Heyes traveling regularly on business: I’d attended the summer session, and he’d been on the road for two of the three weeks that I was in Helena, anyway.

We checked into our hotel late that afternoon. I’d wired ahead and arranged to meet my colleague Arthur Pritchard and his wife Elizabeth for dinner. Art and I had been referring work to each other for years, dating back to his friendship with my father. He and Elizabeth had welcomed me into their home on many occasions when I’d been traveling alone, and made my time in Helena far more comfortable than a hotel would have been.

Heyes and the Kid were eager to get in some quality poker-playing time, before the demands of business took over. Traveling was their only chance to get into games that provided them with any kind of challenge. Nobody in Blue Sky would play them for anything but matchsticks, anymore, on account of how they invariably won, Heyes especially. He’d refused that indignity at first, but eventually he got itchy, not playing, and I think he worried a little about getting out of practice. Some nights he came home with enough matchsticks to light every candle in the house, not to mention his occasional cigar, for a decade to come. I suggested he not actually bring them home with him, but apparently that was a matter of honor and would have offended his opponents. (I suspected that he was making that up, and that he’d begun to find the whole thing much more amusing than he wanted to let on.) The Kid usually skipped those local games. His desire to spend every possible moment with Sandy and little Thad kept him close to home when he was in town, but I knew he missed playing a real game of poker, as well. So I was a bit surprised when they expressed their intention to join the Pritchards and me for dinner.

“Curious to hear from your friends what you get up to when you run off to these big lawyer gatherings,” Heyes said, with a wink.

“It’s a wild time,” I said, keeping as straight a face as I could manage. “There is riotous attending of court and thoroughly abandoned exchanging of business cards. You can come along sometime, if you like, though I suspect it might give the words bored senseless new meaning for you.”

“I might just do that sometime, honey. I’m sure some of your lawyer friends are real bad at poker. And you know how much I like watching you knock the stuffing out of some other lawyer, in court. Pity no one’s come to Blue Sky to take up Rick Johnson’s old place and go up against you and Jeremy. I miss the shows.”

Just then, I saw Art and Elizabeth making their way towards us across the hotel’s lobby. They were delighted to meet my husband and his partner, and even more delighted to learn that they would be joining us for dinner.

“We’ve heard so much about the two of you,” said Elizabeth. “Ella’s told us how handsome you both are, but obviously she didn’t tell us the half of it.” The Pritchards were of my parents’ generation, it should be said, so when she winked at the younger men, no one took it amiss. I know they’d always been a little puzzled with the whole question of how a lawyer had married a former outlaw, but I was fairly certain they wouldn’t be wondering much longer. Not once they got to know Heyes and Jed.

Although our hotel had a dining room, Art suggested that we try a new place, which had already gained the reputation of being extraordinarily good. The chef-owner had recently relocated from San Francisco, which sounded promising. On the way there, we passed a theater.

“Look!” I said. “Shakespeare’s _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ —I’ve read that, but never seen it.” Blue Sky was too small to get traveling theater companies on anything like a regular basis, but in Denver and San Francisco before that, we’d managed to attend fairly often. All of us liked the make-believe. Heyes pointed out that they’d played roles often enough in the course of their criminal endeavors, so the theater made them feel at home, in many ways. He suggested that he get us tickets, and the Kid quickly agreed. The Pritchards declined, having seen the production earlier in the week, but they recommended it highly.

The restaurant was as good as it was reputed to be, and we passed a pleasant evening there. Arthur and Elizabeth were fascinated by Heyes’ silver-tongued storytelling, and by the Kid’s good-humored asides and slight (and without a doubt, completely accurate) corrections.

“And you never took anyone’s personal property?” Art asked.

I caught the glance that passed between the two. There’d been a time when they wouldn’t have simply spoken about all this, but their lives were pretty much open books, now. 

“They never did anything to hurt us. It was those rich Easterners running the banks and railroads who we saw as our enemies,” Heyes explained.

“Of course, later on we realized if you robbed a payroll, regular folks wouldn’t get paid,” added Curry.

Heyes nodded his agreement. “That’s why when the whole amnesty opportunity came up, we thought it’d be a good idea to get out of the game.”

After dinner, we strolled over to the theater, and settled in comfortably, to let Shakespeare’s fantasia take over. Although the acting was somewhat uneven, the staging was remarkable. Oberon and Titania’s fairy court were played by dancers or acrobats, some of them flying on wires, which created quite a spectacle. We returned to the hotel tired but quite contented, talking through the scenes we’d enjoyed most. I ventured to explain one or two of the jokes that had puzzled them, and the Kid teased me about my filthy mind.

“No,” I said, “that’d be Shakespeare’s. The language has changed over time, so not all of it is obvious to us now, but he got some rowdy crowds at his Globe Theater. Going to a play in his day wasn’t so different from going to the saloon for you.”

But by then we’d reached our door, and the Kid said goodnight. Once our room door closed behind us, Heyes murmured something about wanting to hear more of Shakespeare’s naughtier ideas, and the rest of the night passed quite enjoyably.

The next morning, bright and early, we turned up at the First Bank of Helena, only to discover things were in an uproar. There’d been a break-in overnight, and the safe had been blown, with a significant amount of cash taken. The peculiar thing was that the door had remained locked, and the only windows through which the bank might have been accessed were high up, not approachable from the street. One of them looked like it could have been forced, but getting to it would have been a challenge. It could also, of course, have been an inside job.

This rendered the day’s consultation superfluous. Clearly, a newer and more secure safe would have been a good idea, and would be purchased. And obviously, the windows had been inadequately secure, and bars would be added. The thieves had done as good a job at pointing out the flaws in the bank’s security as Heyes & Curry Security Services could have done.

I had the distinct feeling that the assistant manager was looking at Heyes and Curry somewhat suspiciously, knowing they’d been in town last night. Not a bad thing that we’d been out in public all evening. The bank president thanked them, and admitted the timing was simply unfortunate. After a brief private discussion in which I was not included, they offered to waive their fee, as they hadn’t really been able to contribute much. The president gratefully accepted, with promise of a follow-up consultation in the spring.

Over the next week or so, we travelled down through Wyoming and Colorado. As train service was continually improving, despite the best efforts of my companions’ former colleagues in the Devil’s Hole Gang, the amount of time it took to travel what had once seemed vast distances became not so long at all. 


	2. Helena to Denver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our protagonists continue their journey and exercise their deductive skills over dinner. 
> 
> (The real excitement starts in Chapter 3.)

Because we’d lived in Denver for quite awhile after leaving San Francisco, I was an attorney in good standing, admitted to the bar in Colorado as well as Montana. However, I wasn’t admitted in Wyoming, even though it lay directly in between. Sometimes I thought it a pity that Heyes’ and Curry’s shared past made it inadvisable for us to settle there, as Wyoming women had gained the vote in 1869, coincidentally also the year the first woman lawyer was admitted to a state bar. Montana would eventually give us the vote in 1914, which was six years in advance of the 19th Amendment, and I’d like to think my own efforts contributed in some small part to that. That, however, is an entirely different story, and I know that my readers would rather hear about a certain pair of reformed outlaws, one of whom I’d had the questionable judgment to marry.

Heyes and Jed arranged their schedule so that we moved to a new location every few days, not so unlike their lives had been when I first met them, before their amnesty. Most of our destinations were right along the train line, though a few times we had to take a stagecoach to smaller or more out-of-the-way towns. Once they rented horses and rode off for a few days, to meet with a wealthy rancher on a fairly secluded property. On that occasion, I stayed behind at a hotel near the depot. Their consultations, either major or minor, were mostly with banks, though occasionally with private individuals. Most of the work seemed routine or even somewhat boring, though Heyes and Jed insisted there were a fair number of puzzles for them to solve that kept it interesting. They could put their former expertise in criminal matters to good use, without actually crossing back over to the other side of the law. Both of them admitted that they liked being the best at something, once again.

They got into some fairly serious poker games, some evenings. That being far outside of my realm of knowledge, I can only state that neither of them had lost their knack for the game. Heyes did so well that when we got to Denver, he insisted on taking me to a jewelers and buying me something special. I was drawn to a ladies’ gold watch in the front case, but I could see his disappointment at my practical choice. Luckily, I found a rather splendid brooch in the shape of a gryphon wearing a crown of seed pearls, which could be fitted to the watch and used to pin it to my jacket or dress. I fell absurdly in love with it, which delighted Heyes. The Kid would have bought half the store out for Sandy, I think, but he knew enough about his beloved and her simple tastes to realize that he’d already lavished more gifts on her than she’d ever use. Instead, he bought one of those ridiculous silver rattles for baby Thaddeus, and extolled his firstborn to the clerk to such an extent that Heyes suggested he’d taken over the role of talkative one.

H & C Security’s business in Denver was rather more extensive than anywhere else on the trip, partly because it had, until fairly recently, been our home. The largest job involved a mining syndicate with elaborate security needs on multiple fronts. I took advantage of the time to call on various women friends and lawyer friends in town, and on one friend in particular who, like myself, was both. Mary was having some difficulties with her partners, who were all men, of course. When Heyes called me in to look over some contracts for the syndicate, I brought her along, and let her take the lead. The new clients she won that day went a long way to resolve the power imbalance at her firm.

On our last night in town, Jed and Heyes decided we should have dinner at the Brown Palace Hotel. As we took in the splendid but familiar surroundings, Heyes proposed a game.

“Let’s look around, and see what we can tell about the folks in the room. Like with that Sherlock Holmes book you gave me, Ella – how he observes people and can tell all kinds of things about them.”

I nodded. “Although those stories might not be entirely realistic – remember how he could distinguish something like a hundred and fifty types of cigar ashes from each other. Are there even a hundred and fifty types of cigars?”

Jed Curry contemplated that for a moment. “Could be, in a big place like – you told me he lives in London in the stories, right, Heyes? In a big place like London, maybe so.”

Heyes nodded. “Sounds right, Kid. The point is, we may not have studied stuff like that, but we do the same thing that he does all the time. The Kid and me, around the poker table, we read people. We can tell what they’re thinking, and usually, we can predict what they’ll do next.”

“Absolutely,” Jed agreed.

“And as someone who’s been a gunslinger, the Kid’s always got to have a sense of the room.”

“I can usually tell if someone’s dangerous, or has the potential to be. Sometimes it’s in their faces, sometimes I can see the tension in their shoulders, or where they keep their hands. So many different tells. You’re right, Heyes, just like in poker.”

“And you, Ella, I’ve seen how you read people in the courtroom – witnesses, other lawyers, even jurors. Not much catches you by surprise.”

Now I understood. “So maybe we can apply those skills in other situations?”

“Exactly.” He looked around. “Like that couple over there.” He indicated a man and woman seated not too far away from us.

“They ain’t a couple,” said the Kid.

I looked more closely. The woman was a striking brunette, with prominent cheekbones and something just a little bit too intense in her eyes. She wore a sharply-tailored ladies’ jacket and skirt, while her male companion was dressed, unusually for the place we were dining, in less formal clothing. Ordinarily someone dressed like that wouldn’t even be let into the dining room. I could just about hear them speaking, and listened for a moment, not for what they were speaking about, but for rhythms, patterns, accents.

“They’re from England,” I said, “and from what I remember from when I was over there, their manner of speech suggests that she’s from a much higher social strata than he is.” 

Heyes smiled, his dimples showing. “And from your manner of speaking, you’re from a much higher social whatsit than I am. Are you suggesting we’re not a couple, then?”

“No, but we come from here, out West where those kinds of rules are broken more often.”

“Maybe that’s why they’re here. Maybe they ran off to be together.”

“That would be romantic, but . . .”

Jed cut in. He was sitting farthest from their table. “I can’t rightly hear how they talk – but just look at how they’re sitting.”

Heyes looked again. “You’re right, Kid. I see what you mean, now. They’re not . . . they know each other well, but they’re not familiar with each other. Not that way.”

“Definitely not in love.”

“Probably not a couple, then. Maybe . . . colleagues?”

“She could be a widow or an heiress, and he’s helpin’ her to run whatever it is she’s inherited – a mine, a ranch, a business here in town.”

We all nodded at that, and turned our attention to the other nearby tables, where we found ourselves in agreement more often than not. A wealthy older man and his mistress, a family happily reunited after the son’s long absence, a married couple who were barely speaking. Perhaps Heyes was right, and being observant would lead us to untangle situations when there was something more at stake than amusing ourselves during dinner.

The next morning, we took a train back north, to reach our final destination before home, in Billings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are, um, two errors in this chapter. First, the Brown Palace was not built quite at the time of this story. However, as it is mentioned on the show as if it already existed at an even earlier date, for many folks it's fanon to handwave it. Second, of the Sherlock Holmes stories, strictly speaking, only _A Study in Scarlet_ had been published by the time this story takes place. However, I'd mentioned Sherlock Holmes in an earlier story in the original Ella series, "A Death in Eden" and that takes place 5-6 years earlier, so I'm playing a bit fast and loose here. (Hey, it was the 90s, search engines weren't what they are today, excuses, etc.)
> 
> There's also a stealth crossover here. If anyone gets it, I will be delighted.


	3. Billings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bank robbery in Billings, Montana suggests a pattern. Heyes and Curry struggle with the boundaries of their roles as security consultants, particularly when they meet a trio of orphans who remind them of their own past. Ella sets foot in a saloon for the third time in her life and finds herself debating the existence of fairies with a pair of drunken ex-outlaws.

We were met at the train by an officer of the Billings National, who looked more than a little overwhelmed. Apparently the consultation had been scheduled at the same time as a large regional fair and market, which meant that out of towners were everywhere – including in all the hotels. His wife had had a baby – her first – a few days earlier, and as a result, he’d let a few things slip his mind. He further let on that he was the son-in-law of the bank president.

He was so clearly distressed, and also sleep deprived, that none of us had the heart to complain, and he accompanied us to four hotels, before we finally found one that had two rooms available. I stayed behind to settle in, while Heyes and Jed accompanied him to the bank in order to take a look around. The plan was that we’d stay one night, and then head home.

Of course, that’s not the way things turned out.

They returned to the hotel, full of plans for the security improvements they’d proposed. Since it was to be our last evening away from home, Heyes suggested we should all do something together. We found the local newspaper in the hotel’s lobby.

“Well,” said the Kid, “there’s some fellow just back from Africa giving a talk about what he’s seen, complete with magic lantern slides.”

He handed me the paper, and I took a look. “Missionary. He’ll talk more about saving souls than about the sun rising over the Serengeti. Oh, look -- there’s a concert.”

Now Heyes took the paper from me. “Brass band? I could take that or leave it, but I’d much rather leave it. There are two plays on in town. One’s that same company doing Shakespeare that we saw over in Helena on our way out. The other one could be interesting.”

We decided on the play we hadn’t already seen. Alas, while it looked interesting, as it turned out, it wasn’t. It was a melodrama about a soldier come home from the last war, only to discover his sweetheart had married someone else. It was predictable and overly emotional, and the theater was quite warm. In the low lights, the weeks of traveling caught up with us. I think at one point, all three of us had fallen asleep – I know it, as the boys, on either side of me, were nudged rather unceremoniously by their neighbors, which had the effect of waking me up as well. I think snoring was involved, and I’m not entirely certain I wasn’t guilty of it, either.

The next morning, there was a knock on our hotel door bright and early. It was Simpson, the bank president, accompanied by the ever-exhausted son-in-law, and by Jed Curry, who they’d collected at his room on the way to ours.

“Timing’s a pity, but there was a break-in last night. Looks like a lot of your recommendations were right on the mark,” he said.

“We’re awful sorry to hear it,” said Heyes.

“Guess with all these folks in from out of town?” inquired the Kid.

“Oh, we’re sure we know who did it. Local kids – we’ve got ‘em in custody, already. We just want you to take a look, to confirm how they did it. If you could join us there, after you’ve breakfasted, we’d appreciate it.”

“They seem awful sure, don’t they, Heyes?”

“I don’t like it, Kid. Seems like they’ve got their all-purpose suspects a little too ready to hand.”

But even their dismay couldn’t keep Kid Curry from his breakfast, and we joined him, though I noticed that Heyes drank several cups of coffee, and played with his food without eating much – always a sign that he was uncomfortable. Afterwards, we made our way to the bank.

The bank’s safe had been blown, not opened, and by someone with a minimum of expertise. Some damage had been done by the charge. And, just like in Helena, there was no possible entrance except through some very high windows. The door had remained locked, so it was either the windows or it was an inside job.

“You think it could’ve been John Benson?” whispered Jed. The son-in-law.

“Kid,” said Heyes, “Sandy had the baby how many months ago? When was the first time you got a full night’s sleep? When was the first time anyone in our house got a full night’s sleep? I doubt Benson was up to any kind of planning, a couple of nights after his baby was born.”

“Unless he wanted out—“ Jed pondered. “But you’re right, he don’t seem the type.”

We arrived at the bank, and immediately, Heyes demanded a longer ladder, so they could examine the high windows, which appeared, as in Helena, to be the only point of access. After some demurral, Benson went to fetch one from the local fire company.

Meanwhile, Heyes had taken a closer look at the safe, which had been blown by someone with far less expertise and subtlety than he would have brought to the job. “Whoever did this,” he began, and the Kid continued, “may have blown a few safes before,” with Heyes finishing, “but doesn’t really know what they’re doing.”

I was always so impressed by how they could finish each other’s sentences like that. Jeremy and I sometimes tried it, just to see if we could. We almost always got things wrong.

They flipped a coin over who was going to go up the ladder from the outside, and Heyes, of course, won. I’d always wondered whether the Kid was ever suspicious about that – I certainly was. So Kid Curry climbed up the ladder to take a look at the window which seemed most likely to be the point of entry. “Heyes!” he called out. “Looks like someone’s come through this way.” He examined the windowsill for footprints, and the glass for anything that might indicate how it was done. When he’d finished and returned down the ladder, he said that it looked like the window must have been forced, and then closed again afterwards. Whoever had done it had unlocked the front door from the inside, probably to let in any accomplices, and certainly to make their exit.

How had they gotten there? Presumably over the roof – the bank was the last of a row of buildings, and though most folks wouldn’t have managed the climb, someone especially agile – young or athletic – might have done it.

The ladder pulled together for easier movement, and Bradley helped them adjust it and then set it up inside. Heyes looked at his partner for a moment. “Well, you already have an idea of what’s going on.”

But Curry’s expression was firm. “No, Heyes. I climbed up once already, and you’re gonna climb up and take a look this time around.” He winked at me, suggesting he’d known all along he’d be going first, and that was fine as long as Heyes didn’t try to wriggle out of his share of the climbing.

Heyes sighed and began his ascent. From what he shouted down to the Kid, it was clear that what he saw confirmed his partner’s conclusions. I thought how, despite the teasing and minor irritations that went with any long-term collaboration, they worked together better than anyone I’d ever met. Which is saying something, coming from a woman who shares a legal practice with one of her two dearest friends, and a household with the other.

After speaking among themselves in low voices pitched so that none of us could hear, they turned to Mr. Simpson, the bank president.

“And you’re certain this was done by locals?” Heyes asked.

“Yes. And from what you were saying, as you were examining the windows, it certainly sounds like we’re got the right trio. The Bird boys, brothers in their teens who’ve been in and out of trouble since their parents died, four years ago.”

“It’s just that the break-in looks like it was done by experts—“ started the Kid.

“—even though the safe was blown clumsily. Wouldn’t it be more likely that a trio of teenage boys would do both things awkwardly?”

Simpson shrugged. “You don’t know these boys like I do. It all makes perfect sense. We’ve been keeping an eye on them for awhile, and it seems like it’s finally paid off.” He then suggested that we accompany him to the sheriff.

The sheriff’s office was only a few doors down, and I trailed behind my husband and his partner. Heyes had been right, the other night, about reading someone’s thoughts from looking at them. Even from behind, I could see a certain tension in Heyes’ shoulders. There was something in the way the Kid was continually looking around, as well, that suggested extreme discomfort with the situation.

The sheriff took us into the lockup, where we were introduced to three young men – but calling them that was an exaggeration. Only the eldest, Bobby, who we were told was nineteen, looked as though he no longer belonged in a schoolhouse; none of them looked like they belonged in a jail. The middle brother, Benjy, was in his mid-teens, and the youngest, Franky, seemed barely more than a child, and was certainly small and slender enough to have fit through that window, if he’d found a way of reaching it. They were all a bit starved-looking, and there was something haunted in their expressions. I never would have thought someone as young as Franky could look so world-weary. I would have been wrong. And I knew that Heyes and Jed were seeing themselves in the boys.

The three of us stepped aside, so that we could speak privately. Jed was the first, and in a low voice said,“Heyes, I don’t much like helping the idea of actually catchin’ people in our former line of work. We were supposed to be makin’ it harder for them to do their jobs, not helpin’ the law throwin’ ‘em in prison.”

Heyes nodded. “I agree, Kid. It’s not what we signed on for.”

“Though what with all that reading of people that we were talking about back at the Brown Palace a few nights back, isn’t that pretty much what this was all leading to? You’re becoming detectives, like the Bannermans or the Pinkertons, aren’t you?” I said, and received a pair of glares in return.

If you’ve never been glared at by Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry together, the deep dark eyes and the piercing blue ones, I can only say that it’s an even more uncomfortable experience than you might imagine. But after a moment, Heyes sighed.

“You’re right, Ella. We knew it’d come to something like this sooner or later. I just . . .” He looked back at Jed, who nodded.

“I know, Heyes. I know.”

With a glance at each other, and a nod, Jed approached the sheriff and asked if they might speak to the accused alone. Simpson excused himself, saying he needed to get back to the bank, and the sheriff allowed that he had some paperwork to get done.

“You, too, Ella,” Heyes said, when I didn’t follow immediately. I was a little disappointed. I felt sorry for the boys, and wanted to know more about them, but I had to admit that a respectable lady in a silk dress was probably not someone they would feel comfortable opening up to. In their experience, I imagined, ladies like me usually wanted to put them into orphanages, or perhaps to feed them, but only if they listened to some hellfire-and-brimstone sermon beforehand.

I nodded. “Let them know that if they need a lawyer, my firm will represent them. Free of charge, of course.” As I walked past him, he reached out and took my hand, and with the slightest pressure, indicated his thanks.

And so, what I learned about the Bird boys, I learned indirectly, from the sheriff. They weren’t strangers to the local jail, though he seemed to be sorry for them, himself. “The family lived on a farm, quite a ways outside of town. There were eight children in all, and Bobby was only second oldest. But there was a contagion, which caught hold of them. The three boys you see, they’re the only ones who lived – parents, brothers and sisters, and a grandmother, all gone.”

Bobby had tried to keep the farm going, with his two younger brothers’ help, but he was only fifteen at the time, and the youngest, only nine. He’d been the scholar of the bunch, and his parents had indulged him by letting him focus on his studies when the others were doing their chores. As a result, he didn’t really know what he was doing, and the bank took the farm less than a year later. The sheriff shook his head at the pity of it.

Bobby’d been bright, and could have been whatever he wanted to be, if only circumstances had been different. Which sounded an awful lot like Hannibal Heyes.

The Birds were in an orphanage for awhile, but the middle one, Benjy, was quick-tempered and lashed out at any perceived injustice. He was always getting in trouble for defending Franky, the vulnerable youngest. Just like Kid Curry, quick to stand up for himself, and even quicker to stand up for others.

Franky was a bit of an enigma. He stayed in the shadows, clinging to his older brothers.

When Benjy was kicked out of the orphanage, after a real knockdown brawl, his brothers refused to stay without him. They worked when they could – picking crops, doing odd jobs, and whatever else they could find. When they couldn’t get work, they’d attempted a few very basic cons, which landed them several brief stays in jail. They were also known to steal food on occasion, which struck me as a reasonable response to hunger, but had resulted in more jail time.

Heyes and Jed looked quietly devastated when they rejoined me in the sheriff’s office. We compared notes, and I learned that on the night of the break-in, the Birds were clearing out an old warehouse, for a new purchaser who wanted to get rid of the bankrupt former owners’ goods. They’d slept that night on old packing pallets. The next night, unfortunately, they’d taken some of their pay and treated themselves to a hotel room. Which, of course, made it look like they’d suddenly come into some money.

“Surely that indicates their innocence,” I said. “Even though they’re children, they wouldn’t have been so foolish as to spend lavishly the night after they made a big score.”

Curry and Heyes looked uncomfortably at each other. “Well . . .”

“All right,” I said, “but when the Devil’s Hole Gang ran riot on their ill-gotten gains, they traveled some distance to do it, didn’t they? And were planning to return to their safe haven even before the hangovers had faded? Anyway, you _had_ a safe haven. You weren’t living on the streets of the town where the crime took place.”

They nodded, but then Heyes reminded me. “Remember what I told you about the first time with Big Mac?”

How could I forget? One of Heyes’ best stories was about the first salvo they were involved in as part of a long and involved rivalry between the Texan landowner “Big Mac” McCreedy and his Mexican counterpart, Armendariz. (I’d met both gentlemen on a trip through Texas some years ago now, and they were everything Heyes said they were.) Flush with success at having outwitted Armendariz – or so they thought – they got falling-down drunk at a nearby saloon and were captured by his men. That wasn’t the sort of behavior I ordinarily had much sympathy for – not the falling-down drunk part and especially not the choosing the wrong time and place for it. But Heyes had told me the story to console me for making a particularly absentminded blunder that had cost me a case I should have won, so I could hardly be overly critical. And for cold, hungry, tired young men who wanted a hot bath and a safe, comfortable place to sleep probably more than I’d ever wanted anything, it would be an easy mistake to make. If I hadn’t believed in their innocence already, this would have been enough to convince me. I was fairly sure, however, that a jury would see it the other way around.

As we left the sheriff’s office to return to the hotel, Heyes offered me his arm, and I held onto it, trying to offer some comfort. My companions were uncharacteristically silent as we walked along, until Heyes suddenly said, “This one’s hit us hard, Ella. Both of us. I’m afraid tonight, we need a drink. More’n a few, to be honest. I know you don’t like it, and I’m sorry, but it’s just the way things are.”

What could I possibly say? “Please stay out of trouble, and don’t come in singing. I like this hotel, and if we're here for another few nights, I’d rather not be asked to find other accommodations.”

Heyes laughed and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “See, Kid? I knew she’d understand.”

“We’ll do our best not to join the Bird boys in jail,” added the Kid.

“Hate to leave you alone by yourself waiting for us to come back, though,” said Heyes. “We were supposed to have left on the last train tonight. Why don’t you go see that Shakespeare play, again? The one we saw in Helena a couple of weeks back?”

“Not a bad idea,” I said. “But it should be starting soon.” I grabbed my wrap.

“We’ll just be at the saloon down the street,” said Heyes.

“Might even be home before you are,” added the Kid. “We’re pretty tired and all.”

I secured a ticket easily, and enjoyed the play even more the second time. I thought some of the uneven acting might be on purpose, the awkwardness of the characters dictating the awkwardness of the performances. And the acrobats playing fairies were remarkable – really talented.

The acrobats. That we’d seen in Helena.

As soon as the play was finished, I hurried back to the hotel, but of course Heyes wasn’t in our room. I knocked at the Kid’s door, in case they’d gone in there to continue to drink without disturbing me. No answer.

And so I steeled myself to face the saloon. I ordinarily avoided such places, but I was too excited about my realization to just wait at the hotel for Heyes and Curry to return. So I took a deep breath, and plunged through the batwing doors. The noise and smoke disoriented me, as they had on the few other occasions I’d entered one. I looked around for a fair head and a dark one together, and soon spotted them, sitting alone.

There was no deck of cards with them, which surprised me at first. But then I remembered Heyes telling me, more than once, that he’d learned the hard way that cards and drinking to excess didn’t mix. He drank when he played, but only in moderation. If they weren’t playing poker now, chances were they’d stuck to their declared intent and gotten serious about the drinking. I only hoped they were still coherent enough to understand what I had to say.

As it happened, they were fairly drunk, but not so far gone that we couldn’t hold a conversation – just that anything I had to say was hilariously funny to them. Heyes’ response to my arrival was to pull me down onto his lap. It actually felt rather nice, but caught the attention of one of the hostesses almost immediately. Once she realized, with a closer look at my dress and at my somewhat alarmed expression, that he hadn’t imported his own professional talent, just a slightly embarrassed wife, she organized me a glass of rather lovely sherry and my own chair. I was a little sorry to slide off his lap, but he kept an arm around my waist. My one glass of sherry cost nearly as much as the entire bottle of whiskey that my companions shared between them, but that seemed only fair, considering.

“How was the play?” the Kid managed to ask, his speech slightly slurred by the drink.

“Good. Well, you’ve seen it. But the thing is,” I could see they were both finding it hard to stay focused, “do you remember the fairies?”

“Ella, honey, fairies ain’t real,” said Heyes.

“Thought she was the sober one,” added Jed. The two men collapsed into what I would almost term giggles, were that not an impossible feat for two such masculine characters.

“In the play. The fairies in the play.”

“Ella,” Heyes said, very patiently, while the Kid laughed, “the fairies in the play ain’t real, either. They’re played by acrobats. Remember we talked about that? How good they were?”

“That is exactly the point I was trying to make. They were acrobats. Good at getting up into high places, among other things.”

“And?”

“Fairies played by acrobats in Helena and a bank robbery. Fairies played by acrobats in Billings, and a bank robbery under very similar circumstances.”

Heyes jumped up very suddenly, and with far less than his usual coordination, so that the entire table rocked. “We’d better go tell the sheriff.”

“Darling,” I said, with an air of put-upon patience which was mostly, though not entirely, an act. “You are in no shape to talk to anyone about this tonight. We’ll go to the sheriff in the morning, when you’ve slept it off. I was just far too excited to wait ‘til morning without telling you.”

At that point he seemed to be getting distracted by . . . I think it was the shape of my left ear, which was apparently thoroughly enchanting, or so he told me, in elaborate detail. Luckily, we made it back to our hotel without incident. The Kid wished us goodnight, but not before reminding me quite emphatically about the proven nonexistence of fairies. Heyes fell asleep on top of the bed almost immediately on entering the room; I had pity on him and removed his boots. I tried to take off his jacket, as well, but gave it up as a bad job fairly quickly. I changed to my nightdress and slid under the covers, while he remained on top of them, snoring lightly.

The next morning, he woke up and groaned, looking at the curtained window as though all light were the enemy. He rose and splashed a good deal of water on himself before changing out of the clothes he’d slept in and into fresh ones. Jed knocked on our door shortly thereafter, and we went down to get breakfast. The two men surprised me by eating a hearty meal; they explained that the very greasiness of the sausage and the stodginess of the oatmeal absorbed the remnants of last night’s excesses.

Rather than going directly to the sheriff’s, Heyes decided we ought to explore the situation ourselves. We knew that the theater folk, having worked late, wouldn’t be up bright and early. My companions continued the recovery process with a nice long nap. I procured a few things we’d need for our own deception, around town, and then read the local newspapers in the hotel’s parlor until Heyes came down to fetch me.

The theater was across town. We arrived shortly after noon, and it was clear things were just getting started for the day. Heyes and Jed were wearing their suits, newly pressed. They’d added rather dandified neckties which I’d procured on my rounds. I had bought myself a broad-brimmed hat with some rather impressive plumage, which was far more dramatic than anything I’d usually wear. Moving my head too fast, I quickly learned, had its complications in such a hat.

“May we speak with the company’s manager?” Heyes asked, politely. “I’m Jim Auerbach from the Auerbach Theatrical Agency, in San Francisco, and these are my colleagues, Oliver Gaines and Miss Crawford.”

The man who’d answered the door, probably a custodian by his coveralls and the broom in his hand, gave us a suspicious glance. He mumbled something about getting the boss.

“Oliver?” asked the Kid, dubiously, while simultaneously I muttered, “Miss? I don’t even rate a first name?”

“Sophronia.” Heyes shot me a wicked look.

“I’ll take Miss, thank you very much,” I said, mock-resentfully. “And you know he’s going to be calling you Grant by the end of the visit, Jed. I remember those stories.”

“Will not,” muttered Heyes.

“Will too,” the Kid shot back.

A silver-haired gentleman, with an equally silver-headed cane and a rather dashing black cape over a well-tailored black suit, made his way into the room. “Gentlemen, and my dear lady! On behalf of the Rocky Mountain Players, I welcome you to our humble temple of art.”

I’d only spent a couple of months in Britain, a little over a year earlier, but I had a good ear for language. His accent was real, and if anything, he was downplaying an upper-class background. The suit was of excellent origin, but had seen its better days. He had made himself into the flamboyant theatrical impresario who we saw before us, but who he’d been originally was to remain a mystery. The name he gave, though, with firm handshakes to both of my companions, and a kiss of the hand to me, was Julian St. James.

Heyes introduced us again, and managed to remember that the Kid was Gaines, not Grant. I was promoted from Sophronia to Charlotte, about which I had no complaints.

“We’re based in San Francisco, with the Auerbach Theatrical Agency, and we’re looking for new talent, both immediately and for next season. We’re booking agents for several theaters in San Francisco, as well as others up and down the Pacific Coast.”

“Well,” said St. James reluctantly, “The Rocky Mountain Players have a regular circuit that we travel. We might have some open dates for a limited engagement in San Francisco next year, but . . .” he trailed off. “On the other hand, there’s a group of acrobats who’ve been touring with us, in this production. We won’t be needing them when we switch over to King Lear, for the second leg of the tour. They could certainly use the work – they’re foreigners, who came over here to perform but ended up stranded. We found them only by lucky chance.”

Best part of the production, and it was only by chance? I couldn’t help but wonder what the acrobats might have done to make that fortunate connection come to pass.

“Well . . .” Heyes hesitated. “I’m not sure that any of our clients would—“

“Isn’t the Western Star Casino slated to reopen?” I asked, innocently. The San Francisco casino that my husband and his partner had once managed had closed in the wake of its owner’s financial ruin, a few years ago now, but it was as good a name as any other.

“Why, Miss Crawford, what a good idea. It seems that my theatrical genius is rubbing off on you,” Heyes said with a wink. “Acrobats performing over the main gaming hall -- now that would be world class entertainment! A real spectacle.”

“They’re rehearsing inside right now,” said Julian St. James, delightedly. “I should be so happy to help them make their next arrangements. Just down the hall – introduce yourselves. I’ve got to get on to rehearsals for Lear. I’m playing the old king, myself.”

I wondered if we were supposed to insist that he was far too young for the part. But in a moment, he’d seen us to the door, announced who we were, and departed.

There were five of them, three women and two men. Three of them could be dismissed right away, at least as break-in artists – although they were all fit and trim, two of the men were too muscular to fit through that tiny window, and one of the women just a little too buxom. But the other two – a young man and a woman of indeterminate age – were small and slender. Judging by the feats we’d seen them perform in Midsummer Night’s Dream, it would have been easy enough for either of them to find their way through that window, and even up to it.

Heyes broke into his spiel about being the proprietor of a theatrical agency. I noticed that several of them seemed to light up with imagining the possibilities, while the others looked somewhat resigned. “Mr. St. James tells me that you’ll be leaving the tour shortly, and that you’re in need of further employment,” he said. “We’d been hoping to secure the entire company, but to be frank, you were the best part of it.”

“That’s wonderful,” said one of the acrobats, but when he looked around, he saw that the rest of the troupe wasn’t backing him up.

“Really, Mister Heyes, Mister Curry,” said one of the men, with a distinct East European accent. “We’ve been expecting someone might catch on to what we have been doing, but we did not expect two such well-known outlaws as yourselves. What do you want, a cut?”

The partners looked at each other. Then Heyes said, with just a pinch of indignation, “Former outlaws. Don’t you keep up with the news? We’ve been on the right side of the law for some years, now.”

“Then what do you want with us?” The man looked confused. “Some of the novels about you, they’ve been translated into our language. We were astonished to learn that you were real.”

“We’re workin’ for the bank you broke into, here in town. We’re in the security line now,” explained Curry.

Their spokesman looked at one of the women, who nodded and took up the thread. “We knew you were in the audience at Helena.” Her voice was melodious. “You were pointed out to Misha and me by an American friend. Of course, he had no idea of our planned break-in, but we did wonder if it might be handy, your being in town when you were. We took extra care in blowing the safe, so it might look like something that Hannibal Heyes could have done.”

Heyes couldn’t help himself. “Extra care? That was a real amateur job. Why, even Kyle could’ve blown a safe better than that!”

“Kyle?” asked the woman.

“Former member of the Devil’s Hole Gang.”

“Used to be a bit dynamite-happy.”

“Not really known for his subtlety.” Finishing each other’s thoughts again.

She shrugged. “We thought . . .”

“Olga,” the original speaker interrupted. “Perhaps we have misunderstood. So you are not here to ask for a share in what we’ve taken?”

“No,” Curry chimed in. “Even if we were still criminals—“

“—which we’re not—“ Heyes added.

“—we’d rob our own banks, thank you very much.”

“Right.” Heyes thought for a moment. “But one thing I’ve never seen before, in all my extensive experience of criminals, is why you were so quick to admit what you just admitted.”

“You might have guessed,” said Olga, “that this is not our regular line of work.”

“We’re not entirely certain if we’re going about it the right away, at all,” Misha added.

“We are trying to raise money for a revolution in our country,” said the other, more slightly-built woman.

The acrobats went on to explain to us the injustice that was occurring in their Central European homeland. They’d been methodically robbing banks all over the West in order to raise funds.

“Misha had read that it was lawless over here,” Olga explained.

“I am still learning English, and apparently I had misunderstood. We took that too literally – we thought that plunder was just there for the taking.” Misha sighed.

My husband and his partner put their heads together for a moment, then summoned me closer. The broad-brimmed hat got in the way, so I extracted the hat pin and removed the hat, with a real feeling of relief. 

“We were thinking that our only real obligation is to the two banks, in Helena and here in Billings,” Heyes explained.

“And that we could just not know about anything else,” the Kid added. “As long as they take off up over the Canadian border, and travel back to Europe that way.”

“Do you want my best legal advice, or do you just want me to agree with you?” I asked.

“Well, honey,” said Heyes patiently, “remember that whole attorney-client privilege thing? You know, that first time, when we—“

When I’d figured out who my client really was, but assured him that as his attorney, it was my duty to keep his secrets. Of course, I’d also been in a rather compromising position with him, at the time.

“My lips are sealed,” I said.

“I seem to remember you sayin’ that then, too,” he said, giving me that smile of his.

Sometimes, you just have to know when to save your breath. Besides, I remembered that occasion too, and very fondly.

The acrobats happily accepted the Auerbach Theatrical Agency’s offer, which inexplicably routed them to San Francisco via Saskatchewan. The client banks in Billings and Helena were delighted to see their funds returned, and H & C Security found itself in possession of two rather nice bonus payments.

As for the acrobats, they arrived safely in Saskatchewan, and then dropped out of sight. I did hear about a successful revolution in one of those small Central European countries some months later. I presume there was a connection, although I’m surmising.

The Bird boys were released from prison. Before we left town, we took them out to dinner. The elder two boys ate with an appetite that rivalled Kid Curry’s, and I saw all three of them stealthily slip extra bread and such into their pockets. We made arrangements for a respectable boardinghouse in town to take them in, and paid a month’s rent in advance. Bobby assured us they’d be fine, and even promised to write.

But both Heyes and Curry had a haunted look, as we boarded the train. This time, Heyes sat down by me, and Curry on the aisle just across from him. The three of us were silent, and Heyes held my hand through much of the journey.

When, in due course, our train pulled into Blue Sky station, Jed brightened. He picked up his bags, and practically flew out the door. By the time we’d joined him, he and Sandy were deep in an embrace.

Rather less expectedly, Jeremy and Kyle were awaiting our arrival, as well.

“Sorry not to give you any time to settle in, Ella,” my partner said. “But there’s been an interesting development in the Henderson case that I thought you might . . . ,” and he went on. Simultaneously, Kyle was waving a stack of telegrams in front of Heyes as though he somehow thought that action would transmit the information that was in them directly into my husband’s mind.

It was good to be home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a few Easter eggs in it, my tributes to some other favorite properties: fans of _Agent Carter_ will recognize the Auerbach Theatrical Agency, while _Deadwood_ fans might envision Julian St. James as being rather like Brian Cox's turn as Jack Langrisshe.


	4. Home Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back home, Heyes and Curry can't get the orphaned Bird brothers out of their minds, so a plan is formed.

In the days after our return, Heyes and Jed continued to be haunted by the Bird boys, so I called on my brother-in-law at his ranch, to see whether we could find a situation for them somewhere around Blue Sky. John didn’t have any need for more hands at present, but he inquired among some of the other area ranchers and found that the Thackerays, who had a place a bit further outside of town, would be happy to take the Birds on. They were willing to pay quite a decent wage, plus room and board. Not only that, but having heard the Birds’ story, they suggested that Mrs. Thackeray might give the boys some lessons in the evenings, she having been a schoolteacher before her marriage.

We met them at the train, a few days later. Someone must have given them some new clothes, hand-me-downs that didn’t really fit them, with Bobby’s trousers too short and Franky swimming in his new shirt. Still, they were cleaner and neater than we’d seen them before. Benjy looked a bit wary, and Franky hung back as always, but Bobby looked around appraisingly, getting the lay of the land, and it was clear he liked what he saw. He extended his hand to shake with Heyes and Curry, but was obviously not quite sure how to approach me. I thrust my hand forward for a shake as well. Benjy followed suit and shook all of our hands, but Franky shyly gave me a quick embrace. I expect I must have reminded him a little of his mother.

“Welcome to Blue Sky, boys,” said Heyes. “I think you’ll like it here. Me and the Kid first came here kinda by accident, but now it’s home.”

“How do you come someplace by accident?” asked Benjy.

Jed smiled. “Bounty hunter we ran into thought we were, well, us. Back when there was a big reward for anyone who’d turn us in. This was the nearest town he could bring us to. Then this pretty lady lawyer showed up at the jail, offerin’ to represent us, and Heyes fell in love.”

I laughed. “Took him awhile to admit it, though.”

Heyes shot me a look. “Took you awhile to admit it, too.”

Jed shook his head, and said confidentially to the boys, “Sometimes these real smart folks can be pretty stupid about things like that. They’re so busy figurin’ out all the angles on everything that they don’t see what’s right in front of ‘em. I think I knew it before either of them did.”

“I know you did, Kid,” Heyes laughed.

“You got a wife, too, Mister Curry?” asked Bobby.

It was sweet to see that love-dazed expression that still came over Jed when Sandy came up in conversation. “Sure do, Bobby. She’s beautiful and adventurous and she can cook like nobody’s business. Unlike Ella, here, who can just about boil water.” He winked at me. “And her daddy’s a Blackfoot, so we’re learnin’ all about their ways. You’ll meet her soon – she didn’t come this afternoon, because we’ve got a little one at home. But there’s nothin’ she’d like more than to cook for growing boys like you three.”

“She starts feeding you up, you’ll be growin’ sideways soon, like the Kid here.” Heyes poked his partner in the belly. Honestly, considering Jed’s appetite and Sandy’s talent in the kitchen, it was remarkable that he’d only put on a couple of pounds since their marriage, but Heyes loved to needle him about it anyway.

“Least I married a woman who can cook,” Jed shot back, then looked at me. “No offense, Ella.” We were walking towards the hotel, now, where we planned to have a meal with the boys before the Thackerays came to collect them.

I shrugged. “I never claimed to have any talent in that direction.”

Franky was sticking close to my side, I noticed. “Do you have any brothers or sisters, Missus Heyes?”

“Well,” I said, “my sister Rosalie and I, we don’t get on so well. I get on better with her husband and with her girls than I do with her. But I ended up finding my own family, mostly, since my parents have been gone. Sandy, Jed Curry’s wife, I met in an orphanage where she was being treated real bad for being half-Indian. Her mother died in childbirth, after being ‘rescued’ by her parents, and her daddy didn’t know about her ‘til later on, you see. So I brought her home to live with me, and she became just like a younger sister. And then Jeremy, my law partner, he’s like my kid brother. Sometimes family’s what you’re born into, like you and your brothers, and sometimes you’ve got to find your own.”

“Why don’t you and your sister get along?” Franky persisted. I wondered why he was so curious, and I wondered why I was replying so openly. I hadn’t even talked about Rosa much with Heyes. She just didn’t come up, except as someone we occasionally had to have rather tedious dinners with. But there was something about Franky’s guileless questions that made me want to answer him.

“She thinks I’m peculiar, what with my following daddy into the lawyer business, and then with who I picked to marry.”

“But Mister Heyes is--“ I could see his eyes glowing with admiration.

“I share your high opinion of him,” I said. Heyes clearly overheard that, and winked at me. “But he’s not exactly, well, with his past and all, not everyone considers him quite respectable.”

“That’s silly,” said Franky, definitively.

“And I’d say my sister Rosa is terribly silly. But, as I said, she finds me peculiar. So there you are.”

Now we were at the hotel, where we entered, and were seated in the main dining room.

When we ordered, Bobby cleared his throat, and addressed the table. “We’re so grateful about going to live on the Thackerays’ ranch. It sounds like a real good chance for us, and certainly the bunkhouse will be a nice place for us to live.” I noticed he was hesitating. “It’s just—“ he paused. “For Benjy and me, it couldn’t be better. A job, and lessons, and all. But Franky’s so young, and I wonder if there’s any way he can get some proper schooling.”

I looked at Franky, who’d continued to attach himself to me, and was seated to my right. His voice hadn’t changed yet, and he was surely at the age where that should have happened. But I was beginning to have an idea about that.

“Franky,” I said, “would you like to come for a walk after dinner, just you and me?”

He nodded, and when we’d had our dessert, and were headed back to the lobby to wait for the Thackerays’ wagon, he followed me outside. Heyes made a move to join us, and I shook my head, so he fell back.

When we’d walked a ways in silence, I asked, “So, what’s Franky short for? Franklin, maybe?”

And she looked me right in the eye and said, “It’s Francesca, ma’am.”

“I thought as much. But just because I know, that doesn’t mean everyone else needs to know. If you’d rather stay a boy, well, it’s much safer, and you’d have more opportunities. I was very lucky that my parents encouraged me to do what most folks consider a man’s work, when they found out I was inclined that way. But that’s not true for most girls, unfortunately.”

She shook her head. “My brothers were right. I’ve been much safer being a boy. But if I had the chance to live as a girl again, well, that’s what I’d like best.”

I smiled at her. “There’s the school in town, of course, and I’ve got quite a library at home. Sandy Curry can teach you cooking and sewing, and there’s a man in town who gives singing lessons, if you’re interested. And if you find you really like schooling, well, maybe we can get you some further education.”

“I could maybe study to be a schoolteacher?”

“You could maybe study to be anything you’d like.”

Franky’s–Francesca’s–eyes widened. “Really? A teacher or a doctor or a . . . a librarian?” She looked at my dress, with undisguised admiration. “And could I have some pretty dresses, too? I mean, I’d work for them. But I do love that blue.”

“I think you could have some pretty dresses even without working for them, as long as you promised to study hard and make your brothers proud of you. Of course, you’d have to live in town, but . . . I think I know someplace.”

After all, I hadn’t had a ward living with me since Caroline had gone East to Mount Holyoke, some years ago now. Of course, it wasn’t just my decision anymore; I’d been a single lady when I’d taken in Sandy and then Caroline, and now I had a husband who had a right to an opinion on the matter, not to mention a few other folks in our household. But I didn’t imagine Hannibal Heyes or Jed Curry would say no to an orphan who’d been in trouble with the law, and I already knew what Sandy’s answer would be.

When we got home, I asked Heyes if we could speak privately, and took him into the back parlor, the one with all the bookcases that we usually called the library. He looked at me warily.

“This place seems a little, well, empty since we’ve been back in town, doesn’t it?” I began.

Now he frowned, that little line appearing between his dark brows. “Two married couples and an infant isn’t exactly empty, Ella.” Clearly he was concerned about what I might come up with.

“It’s just . . . I was thinking about taking in another orphan. Not a young child, but someone still in need of a nice comfortable home, and some schooling.”

“And you have someone in mind? One of our new arrivals?”

“Franky.”

“To tell the truth, the Kid wanted to adopt all three of those boys, himself. I thought that might be too much for him and Sandy, with the new baby, to take on all three. So, in the end, I convinced him that the ranch jobs would be better for them, especially Bobby, who’s old enough to be out on his own. But Bobby’s right – Franky’s too young for that kind of work. He oughta go to school full time, at his age. All right, Ella. I think we’ll all agree – Franky should come and stay with us. And it would be nice to take in a boy, for a change.”

I remained silent.

Heyes was clearly trying to read my expression. I’d learned in the courtroom how to present a perfectly blank surface to the world, but he knows me very well, and it only took him a moment. “Except Franky isn’t a boy, is she?”

I shook my head. “Her proper name’s Francesca.”

“So Franky bunking in with the other men at the Thackerays’ really isn’t such a good idea.”

“Her brothers will keep her safe tonight, but it wouldn’t be appropriate in the long term.”

“How could I have been fooled like that?” he asked in wonder. “Me with all my talk of observing like Sherlock Holmes.”

“You saw what you expected to see. All of Billings saw what they expected to see, too, and for years. I only figured it out just a little while before you did – over dinner tonight. And even then, partly because Bobby was so clearly uncomfortable about something, and partly because Franky attached herself to me so quickly.”

He laughed, and then he smiled, that broad, lovely smile that reached all the way to his eyes. “So Franky’ll come and stay with us, and learn to be a proper young lady?”

“Around here? I can teach her manners and deportment, and Sandy can teach her the domestic arts, but it’s entirely possible it’ll turn out the other way around. Just as likely she’ll end up tearing around on horseback up in the mountains, instead of paying her Wednesday calls -- and then she’ll come home and sit in the kitchen with her nose in a book while dinner fails to cook itself.”

“Sounds like Caroline all over again.”

“Would that be so bad? I miss Caroline. I thought, if Franky took to her studies, we could send her to Caroline’s school in Connecticut, in a couple of years. Give her a proper start in life.” After Mount Holyoke, Caroline and one of her classmates had been invited to run a girls’ school that emphasized academic subjects. Many of her girls went on to university.

He nodded. “If she wanted, and Caroline agreed. But what about her brothers?”

“You know them better than I do. What do you think?”

“From what I can tell so far, Benjy will love life on a ranch. He’ll end up a foreman, someplace. And when Bobby’s had a chance to study with Mrs. Thackeray for a bit, and catch up, he can look around and see what he’d like to do with himself. Maybe work for the Kid and me in security. And it just so happens there’s a law firm in town that I’ve heard is sometimes in need of a clerk, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got an in with one of the lawyers.” He slid an arm around my waist.

“Interesting.” If Heyes thought that highly of Bobby’s potential, maybe so. If, that is, the law appealed to him. “Meanwhile, as you said before, Sandy’s always happiest when she’s got plenty of folks around for Sunday dinner, so Franky . . . Francesca . . . won’t have to miss her brothers too much. They can come see us every weekend.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll ride out to the Thackerays’ tomorrow morning. Let the three of them stay together their first night.”

“I think we’ve got a plan. Sandy and I will get Caroline’s old room ready for Francesca.” I looked at him, and changed the subject. “I’ve been wondering something. I’ve been curious why, all of a sudden, you got it into your head to bring me along on one of your and Jed’s business trips.”

“I kinda miss you when I’m on the road, and I thought a change of scenery might be nice for you,” he said, but there was something evasive about the way that he said it. “In the old days, we never knew when we might be sleeping rough, but that’s not the case anymore. Anyway, with you and Jeremy doin’ our legal work for us, it made sense for you to get a firsthand look at the business. I mean, I could’ve asked Jeremy along, instead, but I’d much rather share a room with you.”

“And?” I said, pointedly ignoring the flirtatious note on which he’d ended. “I know that’s not all.”

He took a deep breath. “Honey, I know how much you miss Rachel, and I’ve been worried it’s been hard on you, with little Thaddeus around now, not to mention Jeremy and Melanie’s brood. I know you’ve been worried about not . . . well, that you’re not gettin’ in the family way again.”

“I like having baby Thad around. I can make a fuss over him, and then hand him back to Sandy.” I shrugged. “Which was essentially my approach to motherhood, anyway. I’m better with the wards – I know what to say to the older ones.”

Heyes shook his head in exasperation at me. “You’re gonna keep insisting you were a bad mother, but you’re the only one who thinks that. Rachel had a whole household of people who loved her, but she always ran to you, the minute you came in the door.”

“Most mothers would have been home with their child in the first place, wouldn’t they? Not practicing law, not writing books. When we met, we never expected – what I mean is, if you’d have known you’d really be settling down, would you have picked me? Or would you have wanted someone who could make a real home for you? Someone who could cook, and who’d put down her book long enough to notice if the place needed dusting? Someone who’d make things nice, and who’d give you a proper family.”

“Ella, you know when we met, settling down was just some far off dream. I wasn’t even sure that’s what I wanted. But what I did find that I wanted was this quick-witted, pretty lady, who kept me on my toes and never bored me. Who took me to her bed and showed me that it could really mean something, when you care about the person. When you love the person.” He looked around the room and gave a mischievous smile. “Who has the personal library of my wildest dreams.”

“I knew you only loved me for my books.”

“I love you for you. But the books don’t hurt, either.” He winked. “Anyway, Sandy’s got more than enough homemaking in her for all of us.”

“She’s only had one child so far – she’s going to get a lot busier when they’ve had more. She and Jed will want their own home, one of these days.”

Heyes frowned. We all knew that our extended household might not stay that way forever, but Heyes and the Kid had been together nearly all their lives, and I knew how much they both appreciated having wives who’d rather live together than not. “I thought we had that property on the other side of the apple orchard marked out for them, for when that day comes.”

“We’ve got it all planned out, of course. But life has a way of taking us places we didn’t know we were going.” I took a deep breath. “I saw a new doctor when we were down in Denver last week. He came highly recommended. I didn’t tell you, mostly because I didn’t think you’d like his diagnosis any more than I did.”

“Which was?”

“He claims that I haven’t conceived again because the blood from my womb has rushed to my brain, due to all that unnecessary thinking I do. If only I would give up my unnatural ways and lead a proper domestic life, and not overstrain my poor feminine constitution any further, I should be expecting in no time at all. As the poem says, ‘Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.’”

His frown deepened. “Best not tell me who, or next time I’m in Denver, I’d likely want a word with him. And not a pleasant one. Ella, you know that if we don’t ever have another baby, it won’t make any difference to me. It’s you and me, and that’s what matters.” He put his arms around me and drew me close. “I just don’t want you to be sad about it.” He nuzzled the side of my face and my throat, and then his lips closed on mine, in a deep, searching kiss.

Some time later, when we pulled apart, I looked into his deep brown eyes, and echoed his words, breathlessly. “You and me.”

And maybe that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, 19th century doctors did think things like that. Really.
> 
> Thank you to my betareaders, Grace Williams and Nebraska Wildfire, who were immensely helpful with their comments. Any mistakes which remain are my own.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm writing this in late June '18. In July '17, I was visiting my parents and found an old fanzine in my room. That sent me down the garden path of rediscovering Alias Smith & Jones -- first my own older stories, all of which I've now reposted here, then the show and the fandom. It's been quite a ride. But although I've written and posted other new stories in the interim, the very first scene I started to write in my head was on the the long train ride home. I was on Amtrak, but I imagined Ella, sitting in a very different sort of train and going through a very different landscape, looking out the window and reading, alternately, but occasionally glancing across the aisle, fondly, at her travelling companions. Nevermind that it's not proper 19th century etiquette to leave a woman riding on her own -- Heyes and Curry belong together, and Ella, like me, was enjoying not having a seatmate. Then a friendly lady boards the train and joins her, and the train scene in chapter 1 of this story properly begins. (I was luckier, and got to daydream alone, and also to hunt up the rest of the old stories on the Ashton Press asjfans page.)
> 
> Of course, when I started the story, I hadn't seen the show in years, so some of the things evolved as I refamiliarized myself -- but it's funny how it felt just like coming home, to be writing in this fandom again. My original friends in the fandom, though I am still friends with some of them, had long ago moved on to other things, and I had no idea if anyone even cared about the show, anymore. And the unusual tolerance for original female characters in the fandom? Who knew if anyone would have a good word to say for Ella and Sandy, these days? I'd worked very hard to make sure they weren't Mary Sues, but some folks just aren't into stories that give fairly large roles to non-canon characters. Which is cool, but what if NO folks were into it? Most of the newer fic I found here and on LiveJournal was slash, the potential for which is pretty obvious with the delectable Heyes and the delicious Curry! But that's not what I write, and I wondered if anyone would want to read what I was writing. I found websites that were no longer being updated, and the LJ & DW communities hadn't had a post in a year or so. Then I saw that there were some new stories on That Other Major Fanfiction Site, as well as here, so that was hopeful. And I was proud of my stories. So I posted a slightly revised-and-updated version of "Untouched Heart," the first Ella story, and I got hits! And comments! And kudos, though y'all don't seem to know how to use the kudos button like folks in other fandoms do. *cough* I rewatched the show, reread our old ASJ Snarkathon, read other folks' stories old and new. More of my stories went up, I played with more new ideas, ordered the _Two Pretty Good Bad Men_ book. And then one day I discovered that the fandom was hiding in plain sight in the least fannish place in the world -- Facebook.
> 
> Which is only to say, you never know how something's going to turn out.


End file.
